


I Thought That Love Would Last Forever (I Was Wrong)

by Verasteine



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Community: h50bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2018-02-21 22:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2484536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verasteine/pseuds/Verasteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"How did we end up here, Danny?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Thought That Love Would Last Forever (I Was Wrong)

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for my ' _test of time_ ' square on my [](http://h50bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**h50bingo**](http://h50bingo.livejournal.com/) card. Thanks muchly to [](http://eumelia.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://eumelia.livejournal.com/)**eumelia** , who saved me from my propensity for having Danny say babe far too often.

"So, here we are," Danny says, pushing up to sit against the headboard, stretching as he takes in the impersonal hotel room, a copy of his own in every way except for Steve's stuff carefully stowed into corners.

Steve swings his legs over the side of the bed, reaches down, and pulls on his boxers. "Yeah, I guess."

Danny watches him as he keeps his back to him, Steve's voice not giving much away except for the weariness that seems to be his constant companion now. He's still as fit as Danny remembers him, a little more grey around the temples, but mostly just him. "How long has it been?" Danny muses. "Five years?" It's thirteen days short of five years, but he's not going to own up to knowing that.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, still staring at the wall. "Yeah, something like that. Something like that."

Still not one for talking, then. There are changes in Steve, but some things stayed the same. "How've you been?"

Steve looks over his shoulder at that, and Danny meets his eyes with a smile. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously."

"You just fucked me and that's what you ask?"

Danny gestures, more to gloss over the memory of what it felt like to have his hands on Steve after so many years, to touch what had become forbidden, and to feel Steve come apart in too familiar ways. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise there was an etiquette to sleeping with your ex."

"I've been fine, Danny. Still running Five-0."

For a man who spent so much of his life on the move, Steve has remained remarkably stationary. "I gathered that from the conference programme." And hadn't that been a shock upon his arrival, Steve's name leaping out at him. "You're tomorrow's key note speaker."

"Yeah." Steve sighs. "Not by choice. The current governor--"

Some things don't change, and Danny laughs. "You always hated bureaucracy."

Steve smiles wryly. "Still do." The smile doesn't meet his eyes, and he looks tired again. Danny shifts to keep himself from reaching out and touching. "What about you?" Steve asks.

Time to own up to his own failings. Danny presses his lips together. "In the process of my second divorce."

"Shit," Steve says, then adds, "I'm sorry."

Danny bites back a comment about how these things get easier. All it would be is a hurtful lie. "Yeah. At least we didn't have kids."

That brings a different expression to Steve's face. "How's Gracie?"

Danny smiles without thinking. "She's great. Loves California. Rocking high school. She still surfs like a champion." His daughter, at least, came out of everything well; a confident, successful teen he's so proud of he doesn't know what to do with himself some days.

"Tell her I said hi."

Steve looks wistful, but all Danny can do is nod. "I will."

Steve stares at his feet again, and Danny watches him, the line of his shoulders, the way his posture says everything he will never say out loud. Danny knows he could throw himself against those walls for the rest of his life and never break through. It twists in his chest; old pain, everything he's tried to leave behind and failed, failure set in stark relief through a chance meeting.

"How did we end up here, Danny?"

The pain in Steve's voice brings out the old urge to soothe. He swallows. "I don't know, babe."

Steve continues to stare at his feet. "There was a time I thought we'd never--" He doesn't finish his sentence.

"I know." A time they were so happy it was hard to imagine they could be anything else. He shifts, pulls up a leg to stop himself from reaching for Steve. "Me, too. But in the end..."

Steve runs his hand through his hair, stays like that, elbows on his knees. "Yeah."

"I couldn't stay," Danny offers, needing to explain what he couldn't explain at the time. "Once it was over, Steve, when Rachel asked... I couldn't stay in Hawaii, and that chance to move away, I took it because I had to."

Steve nods. "I knew. Later. I understood."

"I couldn't see you," Danny says, unable to stop himself talking. "I couldn't go into the police station, the supermarket, everywhere, and run into you. If I couldn't be with you, then-- I had to give myself a chance."

Steve shivers minutely. Out of all the things Danny's missed about him, he doesn't deny Steve's fragile beauty is part of it.

Danny sighs. "All it got me was another divorce, in the end."

"Who is she? He?" There's tension in the line of Steve's shoulders and a note of jealousy in his voice.

"She. Evelyn." Danny bristles. "Don't ask, I don't have anything nice to say about her right now."

Steve turns to look at him, smiling, and Danny smiles back automatically. When Steve leans in, Danny meets him halfway, kisses him back, reaching up to smooth his fingers over the curls in the nape of Steve's neck. Then he pushes him away, gently. "Steve..."

"Yeah." Steve leans back, sits on the bed with one long leg folded under him. "Nothing changes, I guess."

"I loved you," Danny says, unable to help himself, "but I couldn't be with you anymore."

Steve looks down at the cotton sheets, smoothes his fingers over creases.

"And you couldn't be with me, Steve."

Steve nods, not looking up. "Because we couldn't stop yelling at each other."

Danny shakes his head. "We went wrong before that happened."

Steve raises an eyebrow. "You thought about this, did you?"

"Of course I thought about it!" Danny gestures at him again. "You think I didn't wonder if we had a chance? If we should try again? There was a time, Steve, before it all went to fucking hell, that I thought we'd be together till the end. I wanted what we had, damn it."

"Fine." Steve gets up from the bed, starts pacing. "So what the fuck is this, huh, Danny?" He gestures in between them. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"I don't know!"

Steve stands in the middle of the room, crosses his arms over his chest. "We can't be together, but we can't stay away from each other, either."

"I know." Danny runs a hand through his hair. "Look, I'm sorry about showing up at your door, when I saw your name, I thought--"

"Yeah."

The surprise in Steve's eyes isn't something he's going to forget easily. Then again, he hasn't forgotten a thing about Steve. "I had to know."

Steve sighs, an old, familiar, tired sound. "Yeah."

"Babe," Danny says, because the twisting in his chest when Steve gets like this hasn't changed, either.

"It's fine, it's nothing."

Danny can't stop himself from needling him. "Yeah, yeah, you're a grown man, you can take it."

"Shut up, Danny."

They look at each other for a moment before Danny shakes his head. "It doesn't take long, does it?"

Steve scrubs a hand over his face. "I guess not."

"We let it fall apart," Danny says, more to himself than to Steve. It stings to know he's now got three failed relationships and not much to show for it. "I'm sorry, Steve."

"Takes two to tango," Steve replies.

"Yeah." Danny isn't about to absolve him of any responsibility.

Steve looks at him, then finally says, "Was I that hard to live with, Danny?"

He sounds like the lost little boy that always lurked underneath, and Steve never failed to be able to break Danny's heart, so it's no surprise to feel the savage twist in his chest like there aren't nearly five years between Danny walking out the door for the last time and now. "No, babe. Not always."

Steve nods, bites his lip.

"You seeing anyone, Steve?"

He knows the answer before Steve gives it. "Not really."

Danny nods.

"It's not like-- I didn't choose it, okay, Danny, but my job, and I'm just--" Steve crosses his arms again. "It didn't happen."

"I didn't say anything, babe."

"I'm not like you. I don't know, maybe that's why we didn't work."

"We didn't work because you don't let anyone in."

Steve pauses, stares at him with eyes glittering dangerously. "I didn't? You couldn't stop yelling at me!"

"I yelled at you because it was the only time you fucking said anything!"

"I loved you!"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Steve sighs, breathing hard, resumes his pacing at the foot end of the bed. "I thought that was enough! But you, you never-- I loved you and it was never enough, Danny, never good enough."

Danny stares. "Who the fuck gave you that idea?"

"You did!"

It punches the air out of his chest. "Steve," he says helplessly, and then closes his mouth. "I never..."

"I know." Steve deflates visibly, sags to something less than his normal size. "But I couldn't do it anymore, Danny, I couldn't be what you wanted."

Danny hears his own voice twist as he speaks. "Why didn't you tell me this?"

"What was I supposed to say?"

"Steve," Danny says again.

"I guess it wasn't meant to last." Steve runs a hand through his hair. "Look, I don't blame you, Danny, I made mistakes and this is not... I'm not broken up over it, okay?"

"Don't lie to me," Danny says. Steve meets his eyes, and the denial there fades and he doesn't speak. "Babe," Danny adds, "we both made mistakes."

Steve nods. "I know."

"I wish you had told me."

Steve shrugs. "Well, I'm sure there are things you didn't tell me. We didn't work, Danny."

"I wonder sometimes if we could have." Steve turns away at that, but Danny can't stop talking. "Do you think I want to be on my way to a second divorce? No. Somewhere along the way, I've got to acknowledge that I am the only constant in all of this."

"Danny, I-- Look, you didn't-- You yelled at me, but I didn't tell you to stop."

Danny nods. "We didn't work at it enough. We both had careers and we stopped talking and started yelling, huh?"

"Yeah."

"There's another lesson for the future." Danny tries a smile, his heart skipping a beat when Steve smiles back. "Come back to bed," Danny says, impulsively, and Steve hesitates before nodding. He slips in between the sheets, and Danny shifts closer, hisses when he finds how chilled Steve's skin is. "This isn't Hawaii, tough guy, try not to freeze to death."

Steve promptly folds around him to share as much of the chill as he can, and Danny pokes him. "Shut up, Danny."

"Hmm." It feels good, though, this, and Danny puts his hand over Steve's. "I'm sorry we didn't work out, babe."

"Yeah. Me, too."

"Will you..." Danny hesitates, finally pushes himself to finish the sentence. "Will you spend the weekend with me?"

Steve blinks, but after a moment he replies, "I'd like that." Danny closes his eyes, strangely at peace. Steve shifts a little, says, "I think I'll never not love you, Danny."

"Yeah," Danny says, his voice rasping in his throat. "Me, too, babe. Me, too."

\--  
 _finis_.


End file.
